1
The happiness of my existence, its unique character perhaps, consists
in its fatefulness: to speak in a riddle, as my own father I am already
dead, as my own mother I still live and grow old. This double origin,
taken as it were from the highest and lowest rungs of the ladder of
life, at once a decadent and a beginning, this, if anything, explains
that neutrality, that freedom from partisanship in regard to the
general problem of existence, which perhaps distinguishes me. To the
first indications of ascending or of descending life my nostrils are
more sensitive than those of any man that has yet lived. In this domain
I am a master to my backbone--I know both sides, for I am both sides.
My father died in his six-and-thirtieth year: he was delicate, lovable,
and morbid, like one who is preordained to pay simply a flying visit--a
gracious reminder of life rather than life itself. In the same year
that his life declined mine also declined: in my six-and-thirtieth year
I reached the lowest point in my vitality,--I still lived, but my eyes
could distinguish nothing that lay three paces away from me. At that
time--it was the year 1879--I resigned my professorship at Bâle, lived
through the summer like a shadow in St. Moritz, and spent the following
winter, the most sunless of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. This
was my lowest ebb. During this period I wrote _The Wanderer and His
Shadow._ Without a doubt I was conversant with shadows then. The winter
that followed, my first winter in Genoa, brought forth that sweetness
and spirituality which is almost inseparable from extreme poverty
of blood and muscle, in the shape of _The Dawn of Day,_ The perfect
lucidity and cheerfulness, the intellectual exuberance even, that this
work reflects, coincides, in my case, not only with the most profound
physiological weakness, but also with an excess of suffering. In the
midst of the agony of a headache which lasted three days, accompanied
by violent nausea, I was possessed of most singular dialectical
clearness, and in absolutely cold blood I then thought out things, for
which, in my more healthy moments, I am not enough of a climber, not
sufficiently subtle, not sufficiently cold. My readers perhaps know
to what extent I consider dialectic a symptom of decadence, as, for
instance, in the most famous of all cases--the case of Socrates. All
the morbid disturbances of the intellect, even that semi-stupor which
accompanies fever, have, unto this day, remained completely unknown to
me; and for my first information concerning their nature and frequency,
I was obliged to have recourse to the learned works which have been
compiled on the subject. My circulation is slow. No one has ever been
able to detect fever in me. A doctor who treated me for some time as
a nerve patient finally declared: "No! there is nothing wrong with
your nerves, it is simply I who am nervous." It has been absolutely
impossible to ascertain any local degeneration in me, nor any organic
stomach trouble, however much I may have suffered from profound
weakness of the gastric system as the result of general exhaustion.
Even my eye trouble, which sometimes approached so parlously near
to blindness, was only an effect and not a cause; for, whenever my
general vital condition improved, my power of vision also increased.
Having admitted all this, do I need to say that I am experienced in
questions of decadence? I know them inside and out. Even that filigree
art of prehension and comprehension in general, that feeling for
delicate shades of difference, that psychology of "seeing through brick
walls," and whatever else I may be able to do, was first learnt then,
and is the specific gift of that period during which everything in
me was subtilised,--observation itself, together with all the organs
of observation. To look upon healthier concepts and values from the
standpoint of the sick, and conversely to look down upon the secret
work of the instincts of decadence from the standpoint of him who is
laden and self-reliant with the richness of life--this has been my
longest exercise, my principal experience. If in anything at all, it
was in this that I became a master. To-day my hand knows the trick, I
now have the knack of reversing perspectives: the first reason perhaps
why a _Transvaluation of all Values_ has been possible to me alone.
2
For, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of
such a creature. Among other things my proof of this is, that I always
instinctively select the proper remedy when my spiritual or bodily
health is low; whereas the decadent, as such, invariably chooses those
remedies which are bad for him. As a whole I was sound, but in certain
details I was a decadent. That energy with which I sentenced myself
to absolute solitude, and to a severance from all those conditions in
life to which I had grown accustomed; my discipline of myself, and my
refusal to allow myself to be pampered, to be tended hand and foot, and
to be doctored--all this betrays the absolute certainty of my instincts
respecting what at that time was most needful to me. I placed myself
in my own hands, I restored myself to health: the first condition of
success in such an undertaking, as every physiologist will admit, is
that at bottom a man should be sound. An intrinsically morbid nature
cannot become healthy. On the other hand, to an intrinsically sound
nature, illness may even constitute a powerful stimulus to life, to
a surplus of life. It is in this light that I now regard the long
period of illness that I endured: it seemed as if I had discovered
life afresh, my own self included. I tasted all good things and even
trifles in a way in which it was not easy for others to taste them--out
of my Will to Health and to Life I made my philosophy.... For this
should be thoroughly understood; it was during those years in which my
vitality reached its lowest point that I ceased from being a pessimist:
the instinct of self-recovery forbade my holding to a philosophy of
poverty and desperation. Now, by what signs are Nature's lucky strokes
recognised among men? They are recognised by the fact that any such
lucky stroke gladdens our senses; that he is carved from one integral
block, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant as well. He enjoys that only
which is good for him; his pleasure, his desire, ceases when the limits
of that which is good for him are overstepped. He divines remedies for
injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage;
that which does not kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively
gathers his material from all he sees, hears, and experiences. He is a
selective principle; he rejects much. He is always in his own company,
whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with natural
scenery; he honours the things he chooses, the things he acknowledges,
the things he trusts. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, with
that tardiness which long caution and deliberate pride have bred in
him--he tests the approaching stimulus; he would not dream of meeting
it half-way. He believes neither in "ill-luck" nor "guilt"; he can
digest himself and others; he knows how to forget--he is strong enough
to make everything turn to his own advantage.
Lo then! I am the very reverse of a decadent, for he whom I have just
described is none other than myself.
3
This double thread of experiences, this means of access to two worlds
that seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my
own nature--I am my own complement: I have a "second" sight, as well
as a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight. By the very nature
of my origin I was allowed an outlook beyond all merely local, merely
national and limited horizons; it required no effort on my part to be
a "good European." On the other hand, I am perhaps more German than
modern Germans--mere Imperial Germans--can hope to be,--I, the last
anti-political German. Be this as it may, my ancestors were Polish
noblemen: it is owing to them that I have so much race instinct in my
blood--who knows? perhaps even the _liberum veto_[1] When I think of
the number of times in my travels that I have been accosted as a Pole,
even by Poles themselves, and how seldom I have been taken for a German,
it seems to me as if I belonged to those only who have a sprinkling
of German in them. But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is at any rate
something very German; as is also my paternal grandmother, Erdmuthe
Krause. The latter spent the whole of her youth in good old Weimar,
not without coming into contact with Goethe's circle. Her brother,
Krause, the Professor of Theology in Königsberg, was called to the
post of General Superintendent at Weimar after Herder's death. It is
not unlikely that her mother, my great grandmother, is mentioned in
young Goethe's diary under the name of "Muthgen." She married twice,
and her second husband was Superintendent Nietzsche of Eilenburg.
In 1813, the year of the great war, when Napoleon with his general
staff entered Eilenburg on the 10th of October, she gave birth to a
son. As a daughter of Saxony she was a great admirer of Napoleon, and
maybe I am so still. My father, born in 1813, died in 1849. Previous
to taking over the pastorship of the parish of Röcken, not far from
Lützen, he lived for some years at the Castle of Altenburg, where he
had charge of the education of the four princesses. His pupils are the
Queen of Hanover, the Grand-Duchess Constantine, the Grand-Duchess of
Oldenburg, and the Princess Theresa of Saxe-Altenburg. He was full of
loyal respect for the Prussian King, Frederick William the Fourth, from
whom he obtained his living at Röcken; the events of 1848 saddened him
extremely. As I was born on the 15 th of October, the birthday of the
king above mentioned, I naturally received the Hohenzollern names of
Frederick William. There was at all events one advantage in the choice
of this day: my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day
of public rejoicing. I regard it as a great privilege to have had such
a father: it even seems to me that this embraces all that I can claim
in the matter of privileges--life, the great yea to life, excepted.
What I owe to him above all is this, that I do not need any special
intention, but merely a little patience, in order involuntarily to
enter a world of higher and more delicate things. There I am at home,
there alone does my inmost passion become free. The fact that I had
to pay for this privilege almost with my life, certainly does not
make it a bad bargain. In order to understand even a little of _my
Zarathustra,_ perhaps a man must be situated and constituted very much
as I am myself--with one foot beyond the realm of the living.
4
I have never understood the art of arousing ill-feeling against
myself,--this is also something for which I have to thank my
incomparable father,--even when it seemed to me highly desirable
to do so. However un-Christian it may seem, I do not even bear any
ill-feeling towards myself. Turn my life about as you may, you will
find but seldom--perhaps indeed only once--any trace of some one's
having shown me ill-will. You might perhaps discover, however, too
many traces of _goodwill...._ My experiences even with those on whom
every other man has burnt his fingers, speak without exception in their
favour; I tame every bear, I can make even clowns behave decently.
During the seven years in which I taught Greek to the sixth form of
the College at Bâle, I never had occasion to administer a punishment;
the laziest youths were diligent in my class. The unexpected has
always found me equal to it; I must be unprepared in order to keep my
self-command. Whatever the instrument was, even if it were as out of
tune as the instrument "man" can possibly be,--it was only when I was
ill that I could not succeed in making it express something that was
worth hearing. And how often have I not been told by the "instruments"
themselves, that they had never before heard their voices express such
beautiful things.... This was said to me most delightfully perhaps by
that young fellow Heinrich von Stein, who died at such an unpardonably
early age, and who, after having considerately asked leave to do
so, once appeared in Sils-Maria for a three days' sojourn, telling
everybody there that it was _not_ for the Engadine that he had come.
This excellent person, who with all the impetuous simplicity of a
young Prussian nobleman, had waded deep into the swamp of Wagnerism
(and into that of Dübringism[2] into the bargain!), seemed almost
transformed during these three days by a hurricane of freedom, like one
who has been suddenly raised to his full height and given wings. Again
and again I said to him that this was all owing to the splendid air;
everybody felt the same,--one could not stand 6000 feet above Bayreuth
for nothing,--but he would not believe me.... Be this as it may, if
I have been the victim of many a small or even great offence, it was
not "will," and least of all ill-will that actuated the offenders; but
rather, as I have already suggested, it was goodwill, the cause of no
small amount of mischief in f my life, about which I had to complain.
_My_ experience gave me a right to feel suspicious in regard to all
so-called "unselfish" instincts, in regard to the whole of "neighbourly
love" which is ever ready and waiting with deeds or with advice. To
me it seems that these instincts are a sign of weakness, they are an
example of the inability to withstand a stimulus--it is only among
decadents that this _pity_ is called a virtue. What I reproach the
pitiful with is, that they are too ready to forget shame, reverence,
and the delicacy of feeling which knows how to keep at a distance; they
do not remember that this gushing pity stinks of the mob, and that it
is next of kin to bad manners--that pitiful hands may be thrust with
results fatally destructive into a great destiny, into a lonely and
wounded retirement, and into the privileges with which great guilt
endows one. The overcoming of pity I reckon among the noble virtues;
In the "Temptation of Zarathustra" I have imagined a case, in which a
great cry of distress reaches his ears, in which pity swoops down upon
him like a last sin, and would make him break faith with himself. To
remain one's own master in such circumstances, to keep the sublimity
of one's mission pure in such cases,--pure from the many ignoble and
more short-sighted impulses which come into play in so-called unselfish
actions,--this is the rub, the last test perhaps which a Zarathustra
has to undergo--the actual proof of his power.
5
In yet another respect I am no more than my father over again, and as
it were the continuation of his life after an all-too-early death.
Like every man who has never been able to meet his equal, and unto
whom the concept "retaliation" is just as incomprehensible as the
notion of "equal rights," I have forbidden myself the use of any sort
of measure of security or protection--and also, of course, of defence
and "justification"--in all cases in which I have been made the victim
either of trifling or even _very great_ foolishness. My form of
retaliation consists in this: as soon as possible to set a piece of
cleverness at the heels of an act of stupidity; by this means perhaps
it may still be possible to overtake it. To speak in a parable: I
dispatch a pot of jam in order to get rid of a bitter experience....
Let anybody only give me offence, I shall "retaliate," he can be quite
sure of that: before long I discover an opportunity of expressing my
thanks to the "offender" (among other things even for the offence)--or
of _asking_ him for something, which can be more courteous even than
giving. It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter,
is more good-natured, more straightforward, than silence. Those--who
keep silent are almost always lacking in subtlety and refinement of
heart; silence is an objection, to swallow a grievance must necessarily
produce a bad temper--it even upsets the stomach. All silent people
are dyspeptic. You perceive that I should not like to see rudeness
undervalued; it is by far the most _humane_ form of contradiction, and,
in the midst of modern effeminacy, it is one of our first virtues; If
one is sufficiently rich for it, it may even be a joy to be wrong. If
a god were to descend to this earth, he would have to do nothing but
wrong--to take _guilt_ not punishment, on one's shoulders, is the first
proof of divinity.
6
Freedom from resentment and the understanding of the nature of
resentment--who knows how very much after all I am indebted to my long
illness for these two things? The problem is not exactly simple: a
man must have experienced both through his strength and through his
weakness, If illness and weakness are to be charged with anything at
all, it is with the fact that when they prevail, the very instinct of
recovery, which is the instinct of defence and of war in man, becomes
decayed. He knows not how to get rid of anything, how to come to
terms with anything, and how to cast anything behind him. Everything
wounds him. People and things draw importunately near, all experiences
strike deep, memory is a gathering wound. To be ill is a sort of
resentment in itself. Against this resentment the invalid has only
one great remedy--I call it _Russian fatalism,_ that fatalism which
is free from revolt, and with which the Russian soldier, to whom a
campaign proves unbearable, ultimately lays himself down in the snow.
To accept nothing more, to undertake nothing more, to absorb nothing
more--to cease entirely from reacting.... The tremendous sagacity
of this fatalism, which does not always imply merely the courage for
death, but which in the most dangerous cases may actually constitute
a self-preservative measure, amounts to a reduction of activity in
the vital functions, the slackening down of which is like a sort of
will to hibernate. A few steps farther in this direction we find the
fakir, who will sleep for weeks in a tomb.... Owing to the fact that
one would be used up too quickly if one reacted, one no longer reacts
at all: this is the principle. And nothing on earth consumes a man
more quickly than the passion of resentment. Mortification, morbid
susceptibility, the inability to wreak revenge, the desire and thirst
for revenge, the concoction of every sort of poison--this is surely the
most injurious manner of reacting which could possibly be conceived by
exhausted men. It involves a rapid wasting away of nervous energy, an
abnormal increase of detrimental secretions, as, for instance, that
of bile into the stomach. To the sick man resentment ought to be more
strictly forbidden than anything else--it is _his_ special danger:
unfortunately, however, it is also his most natural propensity. This
was fully grasped by that profound physiologist Buddha. His "religion,"
which it would be better to call a system of hygiene, in order to avoid
confounding it with a creed so wretched as Christianity, depended
for its effect upon the triumph over resentment: to make the soul
free therefrom was considered the first step towards recovery. "Not
through hostility is hostility put to flight; through friendship does
hostility end": this stands at the beginning of Buddha's teaching--this
is not a precept of morality, but of physiology. Resentment born of
weakness is not more deleterious to anybody than it is to the weak
man himself--conversely, in the case of that man whose nature is
fundamentally a rich one, resentment is a superfluous feeling, a
feeling to remain master of which is almost a proof of riches. Those
of my readers who know the earnestness-with which my philosophy wages
war against the feelings of revenge and rancour, even to the extent of
attacking the doctrine of "free will" (my conflict with Christianity
is only a particular instance of it), will understand why I wish to
focus attention upon my own personal attitude and the certainty of
my practical instincts precisely in this matter. In my moments of
decadence I forbade myself the indulgence of the above feelings,
because they were harmful; as soon as my life recovered enough riches
and pride, however, I regarded them again as forbidden, but this time
because they were _beneath_ me. That "Russian fatalism" of which I have
spoken manifested itself in me in such a way that for years I held
tenaciously to almost insufferable conditions, places, habitations,
and companions, once chance had placed them on my path--it was better
than changing them, than feeling that they could be changed, than
revolting against them.... He who stirred me from this fatalism, he
who violently tried to shake me into consciousness, seemed to me then
a mortal enemy--in point of fact, there was danger of death each time
this was done. To regard one's self as a destiny, not to wish one's
self "different"--this, in such circumstances, is sagacity, itself.
7
War, on the other hand, is something different. At heart I am a
warrior. Attacking belongs to my instincts. To _be able to be_ an
enemy, to _be_ an enemy--maybe these things presuppose a strong nature;
in any case all strong natures involve these things. Such natures need
resistance, consequently they go in search of obstacles: the pathos of
aggression belongs of necessity to strength as much as the feelings
of revenge and of rancour belong to weakness. Woman, for instance, is
revengeful; her weakness involves this passion, just as it involves
her susceptibility in the presence of other people's suffering. The
strength of the aggressor can be measured by the opposition which
he needs; every increase of growth betrays itself by a seeking out
of more formidable opponents--or problems: for a philosopher who
is combative challenges even problems to a duel. The task is not
to overcome opponents in general, but only those opponents against
whom one has to summon all one's strength, one's skill, and one's
swordsmanship--in fact, opponents who are one's equals.... To be one's
enemy's equal--this is the first condition of an honourable duel. Where
one despises, one cannot wage war. Where one commands, where one sees
something _beneath_ one, one _ought_ not to wage war. My war tactics
can be reduced to four principles A First, I attack only things that
are triumphant--if necessary I wait until they become triumphant.
Secondly, I attack only those things against which I find no allies,
against which I stand alone--against which I compromise nobody but
myself.... I have not yet taken one single step before the public eye,
which did not compromise me: that is _my_ criterion of a proper mode
of action. Thirdly, I never make personal attacks--I use a personality
merely as a magnifying-glass, by means of which I render a general,
but elusive and scarcely noticeable evil, more apparent. In this way I
attacked David Strauss, or rather the success given to a senile book by
the cultured classes of Germany--by this means I caught German culture
red-handed. In this way I attacked Wagner, or rather the falsity or
mongrel instincts of our "culture" which confounds the super-refined
with the strong, and the effete with the great. Fourthly, I attack
only those things from which all personal differences are excluded, in
which any such thing as a background of disagreeable experiences is
lacking. On the contrary, attacking is to me a proof of goodwill and,
in certain circumstances, of gratitude. By means of it, I do honour to
a thing, I distinguish a thing; whether I associate my name with that
of an institution or a person, by being _against_ or _for_ either,
is all the same to me. If I wage war against Christianity, I feel
justified in doing so, because in that quarter I have met with no fatal
experiences and difficulties--the most earnest Christians have always
been kindly disposed to me. I, personally, the most essential opponent
of Christianity, am far from holding the individual responsible for
what is the fatality of long ages.
May I be allowed to hazard a suggestion concerning one last trait
in my character, which in my intercourse with other men has led me
into some difficulties? I am gifted with a sense of cleanliness the
keenness of which is phenomenal; so much so, that I can ascertain
physiologically--that is to say, smell--the proximity, nay, the inmost
core, the "entrails" of every human soul.... This sensitiveness of mine
is furnished with psychological antennæ, wherewith I feel and grasp
every secret: the quality of concealed filth lying at the base of many
a human character which may be the inevitable outcome of base blood,
and which education may have veneered, is revealed to me at the first
glance. If my observation has been correct, such people, whom my sense
of cleanliness rejects, also become conscious, on their part, of the
cautiousness to which my loathing prompts me: and this does not make
them any more fragrant.... In keeping with a custom which I have long
observed,--pure habits and honesty towards myself are among the first
conditions of my existence, I would die in unclean surroundings,--I
swim, bathe, and splash about, as it were, incessantly in water, in
any kind of perfectly transparent and shining element. That is why
my relations with my fellows try my patience to no small extent; my
humanity does not consist in the fact that I understand the feelings
of my fellows, but that I can endure to understand.... My humanity
is a perpetual process of self-mastery. But I need solitude--that is
to say, recovery, return to myself, the breathing of free, crisp,
bracing air.... The whole of my _Zarathustra_ is a dithyramb in honour
of solitude, or, if I have been understood, in honour of purity. Thank
Heaven, it is not in honour of "pure foolery"![3] He who has an eye for
colour will call him a diamond. The loathing of mankind, of the rabble,
was always my greatest danger.... Would you hearken to the words spoken
by Zarathustra concerning deliverance from loathing?
"What forsooth hath come unto me? How did I deliver myself from
loathing? Who hath made mine eye younger? How did I soar to the height,
where there are no more rabble sitting about the well?
"Did my very loathing forge me wings and the strength to scent
fountains afar off? Verily to the loftiest heights did I need to fly,
to find once more the spring of joyfulness.
"Oh, I found it, my brethren! Up here, on the loftiest height, the
spring of joyfulness gusheth forth for me. And there is a life at the
well of which no rabble can drink with you.
"Almost too fiercely dost thou rush, for me, thou spring of joyfulness!
And ofttimes dost thou empty the pitcher again in trying to fill it.
"And yet must I learn to draw near thee more humbly. Far too eagerly
doth my heart jump to meet thee.
"My heart, whereon my summer burneth, my short, hot, melancholy,
over-blessed summer: how my summer heart yearneth for thy coolness!
"Farewell, the lingering affliction of my spring! Past is the
wickedness of my snowflakes in June! Summer have I become entirely, and
summer noontide!
"A summer in the loftiest heights, with cold springs and blessed
stillness: oh come, my friends, that the stillness may wax even more
blessed!
"For this is our height and our home: too high and steep is our
dwelling for all the unclean and their appetites.
"Do but cast your pure eyes into the well of my joyfulness, my friends!
How could it thus become muddy! It will laugh back at you with its
purity.
"On the tree called Future do we build our nest: eagles shall bring
food in their beaks unto us lonely ones!
"Verily not the food whereof the unclean might partake. They would
think they ate fire and would burn their mouths!
"Verily, no abodes for the unclean do we here hold in readiness! To
their bodies our happiness would seem an ice-cavern, and to their
spirits also!
"And like strong winds will we live above them, neighbours to the
eagles, companions of the snow, and playmates of the sun: thus do
strong winds live.
"And like a wind shall I one day blow amidst them, and take away their
soul's breath with my spirit: thus my future willeth it.
"Verily, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all low lands; and this is
his counsel to his foes and to all those who spit and spew: 'Beware of
spitting against the wind!'"
[Footnote 1: The right which every Polish deputy, whether a great or an
inferior nobleman, possessed of forbidding the passing of any measure
by the Diet, was called in Poland the _liberum veto_ (in Polish _nie
pozwalam_), and brought all legislation to a standstill.--TR.]
[Footnote 2: Eugen Dübring is a philosopher and political economist
whose general doctrine might be characterised as a sort of abstract
Materialism with an optimistic colouring.--TR.]
[Footnote 3: This, of course, is a reference to Wagner's _Parsifal._
See my note on p. 96 of _The Will to Power_ vol. i.--TR.]